RESOURCE CENTRE

Your EnterQuest Bulletin - 6 January 2005

In this week's issue:

• five resolutions for all small business owners
• how focused is your marketing?
• understanding the new licensing laws
• securing your computer in three easy steps
  

Weekly stir

Five resolutions for all small business owners

Every new year, we nearly all make the same predictable resolutions about how we are going to improve our health, fitness, personal effectiveness and wealth over the year ahead. But in reality, how many people really see any of these through?

If you're planning to start a business in 2005 or recently started one last year, here are five resolutions that you would be foolish not to stick to in your business at any time of the year.

1) Find reasons why people WON'T buy from you

Too many new business owners think that once they're up and running, and they've got their marketing messages prepared or written, everything after that will be easy. But in fact many, and in some cases most, of your target audience will decide not to buy from you when they see, read or hear your offer.

And you need to find out why.

Is it because your post-sales service isn't strong enough; is your message not clear enough; is it too difficult or unclear how to place an order; or is it that your customers simply can't find your website, Yellow Pages ad, or premises?

If you believe you aren't achieving the volume of sales you were expecting, you need to make it a priority to find out what is preventing people from buying from you, or is making them buy from your competitors instead.

Then you can set about removing those reasons, so your business becomes the first choice for your customers and prospects.

2) Talk to other small business owners

Just about every business owner we have met over the years consistently tells us that they trust the advice of, or would like their business questions answered by, other business owners. Makes sense, doesn't it?

So as soon as you can, join your local business club, chamber of commerce or local small business owners network, or visit online small business forums such as Aardvark or Teneric (or even Aurora for female entrepreneurs) and network like crazy.

We're planning to launch a "small business answers" service later this year, which will be run by the EnterQuest team and a group of hand picked enthusiastic and experienced small business owners. If you're interested and would like to know more, e-mail us at enterquest@cobwebinfo.com.

3) Break your goals down into smaller more achievable targets

Try this for a different approach to managing and achieving your targets and objectives.

Do you set yourself weekly, monthly and quarterly goals? Most small business owners do, but they also fail to manage or achieve them.

If you have set yourself annual or quarterly targets, for example in your business plan, the chances are you don't look at them again until the quarter or year is up, by which time it's too late when you realise you've failed to hit your objectives.

Instead of doing this, break down your longer-term objectives into monthly goals, then break your monthly goals into weekly ones, and your weekly ones into daily goals. The trick now is every day to concentrate on achieving your daily goals, which you'll find will quickly improve your chances of achieving your weekly targets, which in turn will help you meet your monthly objectives.

This approach requires plenty of discipline and concentration, but it can produce results and quickly. We'll periodically keep beating you over the head about this approach in future bulletins, as this is a key management weakness that every small business owner should work on improving.

4) Focus on one key thing or one business breakthrough at a time

It's very easy to get carried away with all that management guru stuff about multi-tasking and multi-targeting. But this just ties too many small business owners in knots.

In fact, it's much easier, and more effective, to achieve the breakthroughs that you want by prioritising and focusing on one major strategic business objective at a time. And ideally these will be the breakthroughs that are the most important and urgent in your business. Do you do any of this, or do you try to do too many things at once? You'll find this approach works well with resolution 3) above.

5) Learn from business leaders

There are examples all over the place of what business leaders can achieve by using the right ingredients for success.

Google, for example, has a policy of allowing all its employees to spend 20% of their time "developing" themselves or being involved in development activities in the company.

You can learn from this approach by following the 80/20 principle of spending 80% of your time "delivering" your core business activities and services, and the remaining 20% of your time "developing". This means stepping back from your business and looking for ways to improve it, to exploit new opportunities, or to develop new products and services for your market. This is an easy-to-follow business approach, and again very effective if pursued with discipline.

Throughout 2005, we'll be keeping you focused on more proven small business management principles and practical tips such as these. We hope, at least, that you give them all a try.

When faced with the challenge of getting sales in a new market or finding new prospects and leads for your business, you won't go far wrong if you also follow the 80/20 rule when you plan your marketing campaigns. Focus 80% of your marketing effort on getting to know as much as possible about the 20% of customers or prospects who genuinely represent the greatest sales potential for your business.

Select a target niche that you believe, or you can prove, is most likely to buy from you. You can identify this niche by analysing what sort of people spend the most money with you, or on your type of product or service. Can you find out and define the unique characteristics that people in this group share?

The following list of questions about your prospects and potential new customers is broken into two tiers, which aim to show the different levels on which you can get to know your customers and prospects.

For example, if you can answer all the questions in the first section, you'll have enough information to build a list of names of people in your market, with information on where they are located and their demographic profile in terms of age, gender and ethnicity. This can help you decide where they're most likely to see your marketing messages.

But if you can find and analyse the more detailed information in section two, you'll really get to understand what motivates your target market, and what makes it tick.

Basic information:

• Where do they live?
• What is their occupation?
• How old are they?
• What is their gender?
• What is their ethnic group?
• What is their marital status?
  

More detailed information:

• How much do they earn?
• What newspapers and magazines do they read?
• What associations or groups do they belong to?
• How do they prefer to buy (phone, online, mail order, face-to-face)?
• What is their education level?
• How do they socialise?
• What are their hobbies?
• What are their tastes and preferences?
• What are their special interests?
  

This list is not exhaustive, but if you can compile this level of detail about your ideal customers or prospects, you'll be able to focus your marketing message and medium like a laser on the target niche that you've defined.

In the UK Small Business Marketing Bible you can find hundreds more tips on finding new customers, as well as techniques and tactics that will help increase sales for any small business in any sector.

Legal tip

Understanding the new licensing laws

Now that the holiday season's over, drinking might be the farthest thing from your mind. But if you're planning to run a business serving alcohol or providing certain types of entertainment, 7 February will offer the first chance to apply for the new licences that will be compulsory later this year.

The various sections of the Licensing Act 2003 are being brought into force during 2005. The Act will apply if you intend to sell alcohol in a shop or club, provide entertainment such as music or dancing, or provide hot food after 11pm at night (which means it also affects takeaways - even mobile ones).

There are two types of licence - the personal licence, and the premises licence. The personal licence allows you to be in charge of serving alcohol in a business that already has a premises licence. Staff serving drinks don't need a personal licence as long as there is a designated premises supervisor who does hold one.

The Act has been controversial, but it's designed to cut out red tape and simplify the process of applying for licences - particularly for businesses that want to provide entertainment and alcohol. Licences will be granted by local licensing authorities, which are committees in your local council.

In most cases, the premises licences will be valid for an unlimited time and a personal licence for ten years.

Of course, there are plenty of exceptions to these rules, so it's essential to check out the guidance in detail. A good place to start is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's website.

Your local council website will have details on how to apply, and there are further explanatory notes at the Stationery Office.

And our UK Red Tape BUSTER has hundreds more factsheets, scenarios, and frequently asked questions designed to help small business owners in every sector.

Securing your computer in three easy steps

This three-step plan isn't a magic wand that will make your computer invulnerable to wily worms and horrible hackers. But follow it closely, and you'll reduce your chances of being attacked in 2005 to the minimum.

1) Be careful when opening emails

Even if e-mails appear to be from somebody known to you, they should be treated with caution. Some viruses spread by sending e-mails to people in your address book, so that they arrive with your name on and appear to be harmless.

E-mails can do a number of things: they may have a virus attached, which can look as if it's a harmless document or spreadsheet but wreaks havoc when it's opened; they may be in HTML format, which can hide malicious code; and they may contain a link, which if clicked, takes you to a website with malicious script.

2) Install virus protection software

It's impossible to recommend the best virus protection package here - they're designed for a variety of purposes and what suits one computer user may leave another vulnerable. But some general tips are useful: look for a package that updates your virus definitions at least weekly, and immediately in the event of major viruses. Make sure it will give you the option of checking everything before it can infect your computer - and that means e-mails and websites you visit as well as ordinary documents. And software that also has a firewall is a bonus.

3) Keep your operating system up to date

Operating system patches are designed to plug newly discovered holes which can be exploited to attack your computer. Microsoft releases patches for nearly all its operating systems (such as Windows 98, XP and Windows 2000) on a regular basis, and almost immediately in the case of particularly dangerous vulnerabilities. Check out its update site for more details. Other operating systems such as Apple aren't as vulnerable for the simple reason that hackers concentrate on Microsoft, but frequent upgrades are still a must.

Now that we've persuaded you to get secure (and we hope we have!), where should you go next? PC Magazine has regular independent reviews of anti-virus software, and the Firewall Guide offers a round up of other software reviews. Finally, a chat with your local software shop should give you a view on what the latest products are. Good luck!

Each week we provide you with summaries of some popular or emerging business ideas in the UK.

Here is this week's idea:

• Trend Predictor

Just one word

Regularly improving your vocabulary is not just about learning a new word and its meaning. It will improve your general knowledge and make you feel and act smarter in all sorts of personal and business situations.

Do you know the difference between the commonly confused words, 'diffuse' and 'defuse'? Which of the following definitions apply to which word?

a) to reduce tension
b) to spread out or disperse

Answer at the end of the Bulletin.

Did you know?

Chip and PIN myths explained

The chip and PIN campaign has published a factsheet debunking several myths about the implementation of chip and PIN systems for UK retailers. The information aims to clear up widespread misunderstanding over the deadline dates for chip and PIN-enabled equipment. Many retailers had been concerned that they would miss the 1 January deadline, when liability for some types of card fraud was transferred from banks to businesses.

Download the factsheet at:
http://www.chipandpin.co.uk/reflib/dispelling_myths_retailers.pdf

Transport Direct is a new travel information and journey planning portal. It was launched on 31 December and includes details of both public and private transport across the UK, including maps, live travel and traffic information and links to rail and coach ticket retailers. The idea is that it provides a one-stop approach to planning a journey, which in theory is good news for businesses relying on the UK's transport infrastructure.

So what's it like in practice? Well, the live travel news is certainly a practical resource - it's good to have constantly updated road, rail, sea and air info in one place, rather than having to check the individual websites of train companies, airports and traffic monitoring services. The Quick Planner, which enables you to find a flight, train, road or bus that will take you where you need to go, is easy to use, and the City-to-City option lets you compare the duration of journeys on different forms of transport or with different providers. All in all, it's pretty good - our only criticism is that you can't actually complete the transaction on the portal, and must instead click through to the transport providers website to make the booking.

Access the new service at:
http://www.transportdirect.info

Network with your local community - online

Craigslist is an online community network organised by area. Its hundreds of links can help you find other business owners in your local area to network with, source particular goods in your area, barter with businesses, find an event, advertise or simply find a discussion group...the list is virtually endless. It was originally set up in the US, but it now includes pages for London, Manchester, Edinburgh and Dublin.

Check out the London page at:
http://london.craigslist.org